JR, WordPress has a dashboard that lets us see things like daily hits, incoming links, and the like. One thing it shows you is what people have been looking for in search engines that got them to you. Here’s yesterday’s list:

I still get the most hits from people searching for “Mischa Barton,” whom I mentioned once in passing in a post about something else entirely, like months and months (maybe even almost a year) ago. The comments on that thread were also my all time favorite because of how astoundingly stupid and single minded these Mischa Barton fans are.

I know! And the thing is, I wasn’t slagging her off. I didn’t even know who the fuck Mischa Barton was other than “somebody famous.” But some stupid gossip rag referred to her as “pear shaped” and offered clothing advice on how she could minimize her “figure flaws” and I posted and basically said that was horseshit. Cue a bazillion fans of that TV show she was on flocking to my site and calling me a jealous bitch for calling Mischa Barton fat. It was bizarre.

And, Tari, I sympathize on the name. I grew up in Georgia where my name was constantly, no matter how many times I corrected it, spelled Mary Ann on the first day of school. And for an indeterminate amount of time AFTER the first day. Grrr.

Actually, what I find myself most impressed with here is the correct use of “your” in that query. It seems to me that the more common construction of that sentiment would be, “the key to happiness is being thin.” I’m going to ponder that for a while because I think that “your” says a lot about the person.

In addition, I do hope they found what they were looking for here, because they could also have been using Google to do am “am I right about this statement” check. It’s like when people put in “wierd” and then put in “weird” to see which one gets more hits, and therefore is the correct spelling (disregarding that Google actually DOES correct your spelling now).

I like that googling that brings you to The Fantasy of Being Thin, which is one of the greatest Fat Acceptance posts ever. It’s like, getting into the basics. The 101 course. I can’t think of a better post to read after googling that particular thought.

And now your search alert will show it again. because I just googled it and decided to re-read the post, so my search brought me to your site as well.

Oh, no, no, A Sarah. Sorry! I wasn’t implying that the “being thin” version was grammatically incorrect.

I’ll try again. What I meant was that the use of the possessive pronoun “your” in front of a gerund, while totally grammatically correct, is very uncommon nowadays. Moreover, when people do go ahead and use it, they are usually thinking of the wrong word, which is clear when they write “you’re” instead of “your.”

So, it’s just been my experience that contemporary speakers of English tend to leave that pronoun out when expressing such sentiments. Instead of “the key to happiness is your being thin,” they say, “the key to happiness is being thin.”

Both are grammatically correct (although they do mean ever so slightly different things). The first is just less common, and often misused. Our Googler not only used it, but used it correctly. I find that just the tiniest bit telling. Sorry for the confusion.

Oh and just because I am challenged today and couldn’t get a whole thought into one comment, I didn’t see a lot of fatophobia in it, but am not as tuned in to it as you all are. You pick up on a lot of overt and covert discrimination that seems to just bypass me. I am trying to be more in tune though.

…and since I’m still here, LauraAnne, I, for one, don’t think the Google search was necessarily fatophobic at all. I’m just wondering if the person was actually trying to find the answer to the question, “Is the key to happiness being thin?” Because, you know, it isn’t.

Once upon a time, I did get thin, and not only did I not get happy, I got depressed. I’m not blaming the thinness for the depression, although I’m certain the sudden attention from men I’d known for years and the remarks like, “I didn’t want to say this when you were fat, but I couldn’t believe you went out like that” didn’t help. But there you are. I was thin, and I was depressed.

Years later, after having a kid, which rearranged my thinking about what’s important in life, I’m fat, self-confident, and happy. So, I guess I could say, “The key to happiness is having a kid . . . my kid, in particular.” But that would be silly.

And who knows what the next phase will bring? But unconditional self-love is key, though hard to attain.

It cracks me up some of the phrases that bring people to certain blogs. One phrase that I KEEP getting is “How not to lose my breath when running”. Granted I HAVE made a post about that since I kept getting that search term but honestly; I am the LAST person you want telling you how to run better. I don’t run. I run only when chased…by something big…with sharp teeth (or 8 legs…freaky little spider bastards creep me out) ;)

“There is no key to happiness, because happiness is not locked.”

LOVE. I’d add though that not only is happiness not locked; but there are many open doorways through which you can enter. This isn’t only one path to happiness; and YMMV. ^^

For me, yeah hot sex, good books and ridged potato chips (no, not all at the same time…although…hmmm) lead to happy :D

I’ve been lurking here for a while, enjoying the posts and the discussions. It took Red Velvet Cake to bring me out of the shadows. Here’s my mother’s recipe. She made it every year at Christmas until she died eleven years ago, and now I make it. The mixing of this cake requires several bowls, and when I finish it looks like someone has been brutally murdered in my kitchen. I’m a messy baker.

Like April D said, there are many paths to happiness. A romp in the lake with my big yellow mutt, the daily 9 AM super lovey kitty cuddle time with my little sweetie, dinner with my husband, a good book, cheesecake…

Rather than waste our lives chasing a mirage we think will make everything SO perfect, we can instead learn to savor the little special moments in every day that used to pass us by when we were hungry, always counting, always measuring, always thinking about food, what to eat, when to eat it, how to eat it, etc. It locks you up in such an insidious way!

The only “key” to happiness, is to go out every day, and live, really live life and wring every drop of pleasure out of it. You’ll never regret spending too little time counting and measuring. You just might regret turning down a slice of wedding cake because you thought the tag on the inside of your dress had too big a number on it.

For those who seem privacy-weirded-out: the search terms that lead folks to your site are captured by the server for almost every site, and shown by almost every analytics programs (that’s the the one that tells you how many hits/pageviews/sessions/etc. you get). They’re not in any way *personally* linked to you. So if you got here by searching “the key to happiness is your being thin,” “baby-flavored doughnuts,” or “shapley prose,” we don’t know it’s you. Make up a name and join the party!*

A message from your friendly fat (and fat-friendly!) IT professional.

Also, I love the number of people referencing Target: Women :D

*assuming, of course, a non-trollish attitude, and comments that don’t include “but being fat is bad for you!”

I was going to say that not having an antagonistic relationship with food was one of the keys to happiness, but it just made me imagine a muffin with an eyepatch brandishing a sword at me when I open the carton. Surprise me muffin!

Curvygirl–Red Velvet Cake is like an extreme chocolate cake, only it’s RED, which IMO gives it bonus points. It’s very rich and wonderful, my family makes it every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays.

Also, red velvet cake is traditionally a U.S. Southern food, though it’s become quite popular in the northeast over the last decade, thanks perhaps to Magnolia Bakery in NYC. I first learned about red velvet cake from Dorothy Allison’s essay in Cookin’ with Honey, where she also gives the advice that someone who’s too fastidious about what they eat–the cake used to be made with a food dye that was outlawed for being carcinogenic–will be no fun at all in bed.

Personally, I believe that the key to happiness is rock music and hot sex.

And as my husband says, with enough of both those, who needs drugs?

(Apart, of course, from theobromine, which is where the Red Velvet Cake comes in. Had heard of it but not yet tried it…thanks for enlightening me and thank YOU in particular, Carla. If you hear strong language coming from the kitchen, it is, as always, me baking. Nom.)

For me, there’s a real link between red velvet cake and happiness… it was the top layer of my husband’s and my wedding cake! :) And the CPK version is quite good. Hmmmm. I have been craving a BBQ chicken chopped salad… hmmm… dinner questions may be solved!

Q Godless Heathen;
“Silly searchers: The key to happiness runs on batteries and buzzes quietly in your sock drawer if you forget to turn it off. ;)

You don’t gotta be thin for that!”

Holy HECK!!!

That was one of the most wonderful and smart comments I’ve read in a while!!!

Although I was pretty partial to those at first, given my Hubby has never satisfied me even after 8 years (AND I’ve lost 100 pounds and have more problems in my life than ever before and my depression got worse with vision problems as well. So, no, thin(ner) does not equal happy).

I’m looking into getting one of those as soon as I have money, hopefully very, very soon!!!

Concerned Citizen,
I highly recommend Fun Factory toys. They are usually nicely designed in addition to doing their job. (I don’t like lots of laytex man parts laying around, personally, it creeps me out.)

Count me in on voting the key to happiness as being a trip to the local sex toy store (with or without partner) – and I also vote for Fun Factory – followed about six months later by a trip to the local pawn shop for that beat up old Fender six string you’ve had your closet-rock-star’s eye on….

i will admit that i googled something along the lines of happiness and thin, and up popped the fantasy of being thin. saved me from a deep pit of despair i had crawled in a few months before. got me back to the i don’t care, not your business self i was before the pit. i hope it does the same for many others out there. this site is a lifesaver.

My site of choice is tootimid.com – they’re fast, discreet, and send me emails with offers for free things. Not crappy free things either – I got a ~$50 vibe for free two months ago.

@bellacoker: I would totally be up to give recipes for a cookbook. Seriously. I make awesome cookies that must be shared. Chocolate-white chocolate-butterscotch chip, with ground oatmeal in for part of the flour. Mmm.

4thing, or is it 5thing now? the Fun Factory recommendation! Goodvibes is where I get my gear, they’re fairly good with customer service and have tons of information on the site. Sometimes you can get a good packaged deal, though they’re not always the cheapest store around.